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Manufacturers Representative: Printing, Packaging & Promotional Material

Bob’s Marketing Blog

Direct Mail
Marketing Tips

  • You Must Start!

    Never Mistake Motion for Action

    A long time ago I was fired because I couldn’t get a salesman to make a sales call. I was hired to get a small, young sales team to perform. With a 200% success rate I failed.

    The team I was hired to teach to sell succeeded beyond my or my employers wildest expectations. In one year every member of the team exceeded their goals and earned commissions for the first time. Sales targets were exceeded by 200%

    Then a person from production was moved into sales. He happened to be the owners son. He was very nice and understood our production process from start to delivery. He was a good worker. What he wasn’t was a sales person.

    Unless I was with him he wouldn’t visit a prospect or make a phone call. He had every reason you could imagine. This prospect has a meeting every day at this time, it is too close to lunch time. They are always busy on Monday. If I grabbed my coat and said lets go see so and so he would go, get to the contact and make a decent presentation.

    We would have our post call analysis where he could describe the good things that happened. He was good at accepting suggestions to make things better and understood how to work those into his presentations.

    What I couldn’t get him to do was start a call on his own. I tried everything, bribes, incentives, threats, you name it, without any success. He just wouldn’t start. Because I wasn’t able to demote him I was fired.

    What I learned is you can’t have responsibility without authority. This was also one of the best things that happened in my career because of what I learned and it was the impetus to buying my first business.

    I have someone very close to me that had a traumatic experience as she graduated from college. It prevented her from starting her career.

    She continued her jobs she worked while going to school and was one of the hardest workers I know. Dependable, hard working and a real team player.

    She has recently found a mentor that is making the first steps to the career she wanted in college easier. They are starting with small steps. She is on a path to the career she dreamed of.

    The point of these two stories is in a quote from Epictetus. “you cannot hope to make progress in areas where you have taken no action.”

  • Expand Your ROI: Use Direct Mail

    Snail Mail Drives Action

    Direct mail has been gaining momentum as major media outlets and providers rediscover its worth to brands, companies and organizations. We just finished an election cycle (thankfully) where $1.2 billion was spent on mail to drive voter turnout.

    Like a lot of mail, though, get-out-the-vote mailers and catalogs are using updated tactics and technologies to appeal to today’s consumer, who have become more dissociated from standalone digital messages. “We are definitely seeing both an increased spend with our existing clients as welll as a large number of new clients that are new to or returning to direct mail,” – Keith Goodman, VP at Modern Postcard.

    Direct mail has come in and out of favor, especially with the onset of online marketing. Today mail is stronger than ever, given all the innovative ways we can enhance mail and integrate digital channels into a direct mail campaign.

    Even with concerns over the U. S. Postal Service’s (USPS’s) substantial price hikes. (Although some predicted were not implemented or delayed.) By using your printers expertise customers can adopt strategies to keep costs affordable.

    One of the common strategies is to encourage clients to shift their mailings to lower-cost mail classes. Instead of using first class for only present customers use presorted standard mail to reach customers and prospects, increasing your volume for the same spend.

    For a small local business use of Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) can design a targeted campaign that reaches specific customers and prospects on a weekly or monthly basis. This program will target a larger area over a year hitting less than 10% of the target every month. This is especially successful for Dentists, Eye Doctors, and medical professionals of all kinds.

    The most crucial part of any direct mail campaign — is driving how clients work with printers to create mail that is more relevant to the recipient, and results in greater conversions. It provides a lot of choices for how to connect with customers in a tangible way.

    If you go back to my first message I talked about finding new customers like your best customers. Know your audience and send your mail to those people and people like them.

    A targeted mailing using a CRM/house list is best because you can segment their programs with unique offers, messaging and imagery. You can then use third-party data to find people similar to your house list.

    The USPS has added some new promotions that are worth the effort. Let us help you look into these options.

    Direct mail is a vibrant channel that is constantly evolving. It offers many possibilities and solutions to match customer demand for personalized, targeted, and relevant communications.

    2025 USPS Postal Promos Guide https://www.spiweb.com/postal-promos

    2025 USPS Postal Promos SPI Article “Maximize Your Savings with the Latest USPS Postal

    Promos”https://www.spiweb.com/blog/postal-promos